Community Members

Elevating humanity through business

BIO:

Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Sinek teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people. With a bold goal to help build a world in which the vast majority of people go home everyday feeling fulfilled by their work, Sinek is leading a movement to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.
A trained ethnographer, he is the author of two books: the global best seller, Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action and his newest book, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t.
Fascinated by the leaders and companies that make the greatest impact in their organizations and in the world, those with the capacity to inspire, he has discovered some remarkable patterns about how they think, act and communicate and the environments in which people operate at their natural best. He has devoted his life to sharing his thinking in order to help other leaders and organizations inspire action.
He is best known for popularizing the concept of Why and for the talk he gave on the subject that became the second most watched talk of all time on TED.com.
Sinek’s unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have attracted international attention and have earned him invitations to meet with an array of leaders and organizations, including: 3M, Costco, Deckers, Ernst & Young, HSM, jetBlue, KPMG, Pfizer, NBC/Universal, the military, government agencies and entrepreneurs. Sinek has also had the honor of sharing his ideas at the United Nations, the United States Congress and with the senior leadership of the United States Air Force, United States Marine Corps, and United States Army.
Sinek shares his optimism with all who will listen. He speaks around the globe and has commented for local and national press, including The New York Times, Inc. Magazine, NPR, BusinessWeek. Sinek is active on Twitter and writes his own blog, simonsinek.com.
Sinek is an adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation, one of the most highly regarded think tanks in the world. He is also active in the arts and not-for-profit world, working with charity: water, an organization devoted to helping bring clean water to the over 700 million people around the world who don’t yet have it. He also serves on the board of the Tami Stronach Dance Company.
He lives in New York.

BIO:

Melissa Reiff sets her goals high and continues to meet and exceed them for the nation’s leading retailer of storage and organization products. In 1995, Reiff joined The Container Store as Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and today she is responsible for day-to-day operations and for the specific areas of marketing, public and community relations, store leadership, sales management, advertising, creative, training, recruiting, information systems, loss prevention, legal, and logistics and distribution. Her commitment to execution with excellence and support of the company’s Communication is Leadership-driven culture ensures The Container Store remains one of the best places to work and to shop in America.

Before joining The Container Store, Reiff held leadership positions at Crabtree & Evelyn and LaPapillion Inc. She is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Dallas, a member of the International Women’s Foundation, and C200. She also serves on Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business Executive Board and received the Cox Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013. In January 2015 she was named by the National Retail Federation as one of 25 individuals on “The List of People Shaping Retail’s Future,” in the Power Player category. Reiff and husband Ron reside in Dallas and have two grown children. When not at The Container Store, she enjoys reading, golf, tennis, traveling and entertaining.

Jostein Solheim now in his sixth year as Chief Executive Officer at Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. is not your average CEO. Solheim continues to champion the iconic ice cream maker as it navigates its next chapter in business history. The vision, according to Solheim, is that Ben & Jerry’s must continue to aspire to be a social justice company that just happens to make ice cream.

The native of Norway challenges the roughly 500 Vermont employees to practice the company’s belief to “love its fans more than they love Ben & Jerry’s,” both with new and innovative flavors and in creative ways to continue to give back to the community. In addition Solheim and his team work with Unilever, its parent company, to partner in 35 countries around the world to bring Ben & Jerry’s message of peace, love and ice cream to the masses.

Unilever is where Jostein has amassed two decades of business experience. The juxtaposition perfectly positions Solheim with a foot in each camp to be able to meet and exceed the expectations of both Unilever – responsible for manufacturing, distribution and finance, and Ben & Jerry’s independent Board of Directors who oversee the company’s Social Mission, quality and brand equity.

Jostein is proud to have the support of Ben & Jerry’s co-founders – Jerry Greenfield and Ben Cohen – especially as he continues the company’s focus on Social Mission projects such as values led sourcing, supporting Fairtrade, non-GMO labeling, being established as the first wholly-owned certified b-corporation and other progressive endeavors.

Michael is responsible for the growth and management of the Great Place to Work global network of U.S. businesses. He joined GPTW at a time of rapid growth, and brings over 30 years of experience in growing consulting organizations and increasing efficiencies of innovative business units. Michael has served as President of 8 Factors, an online learning organization, CEO of Clark Sustainable Resource Developments, and CEO of Tetra Tech Communications which he grew from $40 million to $300 million in revenues.

Julie Smolyansky became the youngest female CEO of a publicly held firm when she took over Lifeway Foods at age 27. Since that time, Julie has bolstered the company’s growth trajectory with innovative product development and marketing strategies, boosting annual revenues to over $130 million by 2015 and expanded distribution throughout the United States, Canada and the UK. She was recently named to Fortune Business ‘40 under 40,’ Fortune’s 55 most influential women on Twitter and Fast Company’s Most Creative People In Business 1000. Julie serves as a member of the United Nations Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council and is part of the 2015 class of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. She has produced several documentaries, including “The Homestretch,” “Honor Diaries” and “The Hunting Ground” and recently founded the nonprofit Test400k. She lives in Chicago and is the mother of two girls.

Daniel Lubetzky, founder and CEO of KIND, is on a mission to make the world a little kinder one snack and act at a time. Maker of nutritious and delicious snack foods, KIND is the fastest-growing U.S. snack company, and through the KIND Movement has inspired more than one million kind acts since the company’s inception in 2004. A pioneering social entrepreneur working to build bridges between people through innovative models, Daniel is also the founder of PeaceWorks Inc., a business that fosters cooperative ventures among neighbors in the Middle East, and co-creator of Maiyet, a fashion brand that partners with artisans to promote entrepreneurship in developing economies. Additionally, he co-founded the OneVoice Movement, an international grassroots effort that amplifies the voices of moderate Israelis and Palestinians seeking to end the conflict. His commitment to creating economically sustainable and socially impactful business has been lauded by BusinessWeek, Time, Advertising Age and Entrepreneur. Daniel has also been recognized by the World Economic Forum and the Skoll Foundation, and in 2015 President Barack Obama and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker named him a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship (PAGE). He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellerDo the KIND Thing.

BIO:

Bob Chapman is committed to making a lasting difference in the world. He imagines a world where people think of others first, a world where leaders embrace the profound sense of responsibility for the lives under their care. His personal journey has awakened him to the power of business to create a world where people know that who they are and what they do matter. And, in so doing, will create better marriages, better families, better communities and, ultimately, a better world.

Chapman is CEO of St. Louis, Missouri‐based Barry‐Wehmiller, a $2.4 billion global manufacturing business. He became the senior executive of this private company in 1975 at age 30 when the 80‐year‐old business had $20 million in revenue, outdated technology and a very weak financial position. Despite the obstacles, Chapman applied a unique blend of strategy and culture over the next 40 years in leading Barry‐Wehmiller through more than 80 successful acquisitions.

Over the past two decades, a series of realizations led him away from traditional management practices to what he now calls Truly Human Leadership‐‐a people‐centric approach where his employees feel valued, cared for, and an integral part of the company’s purpose. At Barry‐ Wehmiller they have a unique measure of success: by the way they touch the lives of people.

Chapman’s experiences and the transformation he championed were the inspiration behind his new Wall Street Journal bestseller Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, released by Random House/Portfolio in October 2015. The book is co‐authored by Raj Sisodia, founder and co‐author of Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business.

Chapman shares his leadership journey and the story of Barry‐Wehmiller whenever he can as it is an example of the way businesses and organizations should be: focused on creating value for ALL stakeholders —employees, customers, communities and shareholders. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s good for business, and most important of all, leads to meaningful work and fulfillment for team members.

Dov Seidman’s career has focused on why HOW matters and HOW companies and their people can operate in both principled and profitable ways. That’s the inspiration behind his book, HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, which was recently expanded and now includes a Foreword from President Bill Clinton. Dov is the CEO of LRN. Since 1994, LRN has helped to shape winning organizational cultures inspired by sustainable values in hundreds of companies with over 20 million people working in over 100 countries. LRN is the exclusive corporate sponsor of The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Prize in Ethics. Fortune magazine called Dov the “hottest advisor on the corporate virtue circuit,” and The Economic Times named him a “Top 60 Global Thinkers of the Last Decade.” Dov is a Harvard Law School graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in moral philosophy from UCLA and a graduate degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University.

Tony Schwartz is the CEO and founder of The Energy Project, which helps companies fuel sustainable high performance by better meeting the needs of their employees.

Tony’s most recent book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. His previous book, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy Not Time, co-authored with Jim Loehr, spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 28 languages. In 2013, Tony launched a biweekly column for the New York Times titled “Life@Work.” Tony is a contributor to numerous publications including The Huffington Post and Harvard Business Review, and for three years, he wrote the most popular blog on HBR.org. He is also a regular contributor to CBS This Morning.

Tony began his career as a journalist. He has been a reporter for the New York Times, an editor at Newsweek, a staff writer at Esquire, and a columnist for Fast Company. He also wrote What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America.

Tony has delivered keynotes to audiences around the world and has worked with leaders at dozens of organizations including Google, Unilever, Coca-Cola, EY, Genentech, Bank of America, Alcoa, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Whole Foods, as well as the World Economic Forum, the Los Angeles Police Department, and Conscious Capitalism.

Drawing on the multidisciplinary science of sustainable high performance, Tony’s abiding passion and lifelong commitment is to change the way the world works

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